I’ll leave the personality out of this post. Using the coup and civil crises as the leading impediments to the poverty and limited development in Liberia is lazy and intellectually dishonest. Postwar you have not learned the way how the world works or how nations protect wealth to empower their citizens.
By Samuel P. Jackson, [email protected], Contributing Writer
The war did not take away the 300 miles of Atlantic Coast. The war did not take away 7 rivers perpendicular to the Atlantic Ocean with thousands of megawatt capacity for electricity production. The war did not take away your forest resources. It did not stop you from securitization of your carbon credits or to create a wood processing industry. The war did not take away your iron ore resources tens of billions of tons worth over a trillion dollars. It did not take away your geophysical properties with tens of million of ounces in gold deposits. Or the billions in other strategic minerals.
The war did not stop you from building a trading architecture that supports Liberian economic empowerment. To take your market women from dirty stalls and put then into bonded warehouses where they own the merchandise. Where banks use trade finance guaranteed by the value of the merchandise as collateral. Believe it or not that’s how your petroleum and rice are brought into the market here. It’s called collateral management.
The war did not stop you from rebuilding a credible judicial system that derisks commercial litigation and protect property rights. It didn’t stop you from creating a credible land registry where assets could be used to borrow and build estates.
The war did not make you surrender your commercial district in Monrovia to foreigners. The war did not make you to surrender Tubman Boulevard to foreigners where you do not own one supermarket. The war did not stop you from requiring businesses like Stop & Shop to have Liberian partners.
The war did not stop you from requiring gold exporters to surrender say 25 percent proceeds to the Central Bank. The war did not stop you from building and requiring all diamonds to be cut and polished in Liberia. The war did not stop you from making furniture in Liberia.
Ultimately the war didn’t take away your country. It’s your blindness and limited world view impacting your ability to rebuild a newer, better and a more inclusive society. Blame your ignorance for your poverty. Blame yourselves.
And so it goes.
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